Many Pre-K Teachers Lack State-Mandated Training, Study Reveals

Public pre-K teachers often lack the training or degrees that their states require, and one-fifth of them are working second jobs to pay their bills, according to a study unveiled last week that provides the first detailed profile of states’ preschool teachers.

In nine states, more than 10 percent of the prekindergarten classrooms are led by teachers who are out of compliance with state credential requirements. And although only four states—Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Washington—mandate that assistant teachers hold a child-development-associate credential, only half the assistants in those states have earned that certificate.

Led by Walter S. Gilliam, a psychologist and the director of the Edward Zigler Center for Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University, the study is the first to examine how pre-K...